Underneath (3 page)

I can't handle this.

I suck in air, desperately at first, gasping, then more slowly and evenly. After a few minutes, my thoughts are quiet again. I focus on the catch in my breathing until it finally goes away, too.

That's when I hear the voice in my head.

Not her, no, no, why? I don't understand why she—

It bursts in like static and then fades away like a radio station, leaving me with only the surge of emotion that accompanied the voice, all grief and pain and loss. My eyes sting, and I feel a pain in my chest like my heart is breaking.

And then my mind is silent again, and I can hear the usual noises of the house and smell some kind of spicy re-heated chicken dish my Dadi sent over, and it's like I'm waking up from a bad dream. I almost felt disembodied for a minute—the voice in my head seemed so
not
me. But it sounded familiar. I must have been dreaming.

I open my eyes and flex my muscles stiffly. Arranging my sun and moon pillows, golden yellow and creamy white plush, I get up and change out of my school clothes, now damp from spilled water. Clean gray sweats are all I can manage before going downstairs. Gray fits the overall mood, though; dinner is somber, and mostly silent. I pick at my chicken biryani, pushing the grains of Basmati rice around my plate with a fork.

“At least eat some naan,” my dad says, putting a piece on my plate. Normally, naan is comfort food, pure doughy goodness only available on special occasions or in restaurants, but I can barely choke it down. Dad, on the other hand, is wolfing down his food, tearing chunks of chicken away from the bone with little pieces of naan and scooping them into his mouth. His shirt is wrinkled and disheveled-looking, and he's got a five o'clock shadow of dark stubble on his chin and upper lip.

Like me, Mom isn't eating much. Her hair is sloppily pulled back in an elastic, one long, stray light-brown lock dangling unnoticed into her plate. There are dark circles under her eyes and she looks even paler than normal.

“Have some green beans, honey,” she says quietly, passing me the dish. “And put some on your father's plate, too, please. He needs the fiber.”

Dad looks up momentarily. “I ate some already.” Usually he'd make some kind of dumb, inappropriate-for-the-table joke about having so much fiber in his diet he ought to be crapping bran muffins. But tonight he's just quiet.

I sit there, too, and eat green beans one at a time. I'm pretty sure this is the longest meal ever. I can hear the clock ticking in the living room and the sprinkler going outside. A rumbling feeling of frustration starts welling up inside me like an earthquake about to let loose, but I just clench my jaw and put my fork down. I take deep breaths and try to envision a calm ocean.

Calm. Ocean. Calm.

My mom coughs, takes a sip of water, and then says, force-
fully, “I just wish she would have told us, that's all. We could have done something.”

“I
know
, Mom,” I say. “I know exactly what you mean.” And I do. All of a sudden, I'm frustrated again, almost uncontrollably so; and sad.

Mom looks at me strangely, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“What was that?”

“What you just said. I was agreeing with you.” I eat another green bean since she's looking at me.

“
I didn't say anything, honey. You must have been thinking out loud.”

But I
know
I heard it, loud and clear.

“No, you just said you wish we could have done something for Shiri,” I insist. But she looks so surprised that I'm no longer sure.

“I was thinking something along those lines. Did I say it out loud, Ali?”

“Hm? Sorry,” Dad says. “I wasn't listening.” He goes back to cleaning his plate, still preoccupied with his own thoughts. I try to go back to my meal, but it's hard. My head is spinning, confused. Full of static fuzz with bursts of coherence like a poorly tuned radio station.

“Poor girl,” Mom sighs. “Poor Mina.” And I'm not sure now if she's talking out loud or if I'm going crazy.

But as I stare at my mother, her words trickling to a stop, I know it in my bones: It's in my head. Her mouth isn't moving, but I can hear her voice
in my head.
Her bewilderment, her grief—they're filling me up, ready to overflow.

My jaw involuntarily clenches, and my teeth grind to-
gether. I shove my chair away from the table and run up the stairs. I can hear my mom's questioning tone and a mumbled response from my dad. It makes me want to plug my ears.

By the time I get to the top of the stairs, I'm in a cold sweat and I'm shaking. I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and duck into the shower, blasting myself with hot spray. I must have been dreaming. Or hallucinating.

I shudder, despite the warmth of the water and the suffocating steam. The less-appealing explanation is that I'm somehow going crazy. That I'm cracking from the pressure of everything that's happened.

I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a fluffy towel. My mom's voice comes through the door, muffled, asking if I need anything. Tea. Aspirin. I say no, I'm fine.

Normally, I'm a perfectly functional person under stress. I even
like
it. Coach Rydell can tell you that. I'm the one she boasts about having ice in my veins before a swim meet. This kind of thing—it's not me.

I read something in Shiri's journal yesterday, though. There was something unexplained happening to her, too, a mysterious “that.” “
THAT happened again,
” she'd say, never quite saying what “that” was. But it got worse and worse until eventually she couldn't take it anymore.

Going back into my room and sitting on the bed, still wrapped in my towel, I glance at the desk drawer where I hid the journal away. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. What if she was hearing voices, too? What if something was seriously wrong with her, and now it's happening to me? I can't even fix my mind on that idea—that what's happening to me isn't just stress, but something weird.

Really
weird.

From Shiri Langford's journal, January 31st

Another “incident.” I was hoping it would stop once I got back to school, far away from everything my dad says and does and how my brother gets everything he wants all the time and my mom doesn't say anything about it. I always thought it happened because of them, and so I couldn't stand being home. Couldn't stand hearing, knowing. Knowing too much. Feeling so out of control.

Yesterday Professor Macken talked about people who enable inequitable behavior by not ever protesting, people who imply tacit agreement with an unfair situation by never expressing their disagreement. And she said well-behaved women rarely make history.

My mother is definitely an enabler.
I don't behave. We'll see if I make history.

four

“Sunny honey,” my mom says. “It's time.”

I press my lips together and stare at a spot on the wall across the waiting area, unwilling to leave the holey vinyl chair. As long as I stay in this stupid, shabby little waiting room, I won't have to talk about anything. Not talking equals not thinking, and not thinking equals not driving myself crazy. Which I think I've mostly succeeded in doing this past week and a half, since …

I pull my phone out of my pocket and start scrolling aimlessly through my contacts list. I could text Cassie, or Spike: TRAPPED IN THERAPY. PLS SEND REINFORCEMENTS. Spike, at least, would laugh. Cassie would get that smile she gets whenever I'm joking around and she doesn't think I'm all that funny.

“Honey, this is for your own good. I think you've been getting depressed the last couple of weeks, and Bettie can help you.” My mom reaches out her hand and tilts her head at me with a coaxing smile, like I'm five years old, but her eyes are exhausted and shadowed.

“
Getting
depressed?” I say. My attempt at sarcasm only succeeds in eliciting the Stare of Pity
.
I'm no match for the Stare of Pity, so I give in and swing myself up out of the chair, past my mother, and into the therapist's office.

Halfway through the door, I hesitate. I wonder if I
should
talk to her. About all of it. But if hearing voices in my head suddenly means I'm a “troubled teen” or “debilitated by grief … ” I have visions of my arms strapped down in a white straitjacket, a burly orderly standing by with my daily dose of chill pills before I spend the rest of the afternoon watching game-show reruns in the mental asylum rec room.

The worst part is, it doesn't sound all that bad.

“Sunshine Pryce-Shah! What a great name. Come
in
. I'm so glad you're here.” Bettie practically leaps up from her swivel chair and shakes my hand, hard enough to make me flinch. “I have some readings for you about the stages of the grieving process. They're geared toward adults, but after talking to your mom I think you're mature enough to handle it.”

I spend ten minutes listening to a spiel about the stages of grief, Bettie's curly blonde hair bouncing in time with every sentence, and I nod silently when she hands me a list of suggested books from the library.

After that, the questions start. How am I feeling? Is this the first time I've lost someone close to me? How do I feel about Shiri? Am I angry? Am I sad? Have I talked to my parents? I want to flee. Instead, I remain monosyllabic, hoping it'll speed things up and get me out of here.
Okay. Yes. I don't know. Kind of. Yes.
No.

There aren't any windows in Bettie's office, so I stare at a spot on the wall where the ghastly orange paint is partially scraped off, revealing a gray layer underneath.

Then she says, “I want you to start keeping a journal. I've already mentioned to your mother that I think it would really help you.”

I groan, knotting my hands into the bottom of my sweatshirt. This is not exactly a time in my life I want to preserve for posterity. I'm tired of thinking about it. I've thought about it over and over and it still doesn't make any more sense.

“If writing a journal had helped Shiri,” I say, as levelly as I can, “maybe she'd still be around.”

Bettie winces, then sighs. “Just try it,” she says. She takes off her cat's-eye glasses and cleans the lenses, looking tired. Once again, I consider telling her everything. But if they tell me something's really wrong, or put me on medication … Shiri was on antidepressant medication, and it didn't help her. And … what if that's what made her … change? What if they made her feel different? I read an article online about that, how some antidepressants actually make certain people
more
depressed. What if they try to give me the same medication? What if I—?

My head is full of my own thoughts, my anxieties. I don't say anything else.

In the evening, Spike rings the doorbell, ostensibly to drop off history notes from the days I missed. His eyes are sleepy like he just woke up, and his unruly hair is squashed down under an old beanie that he'd never be caught dead wearing at school. He gives me an awkward hug and hands me a giant baggie full of cookies from his mom.

We chat about school, and for a few minutes my life feels almost normal again. He lounges on the front porch, the palm trees in the street behind him blowing into graceful arcs in the Santa Ana wind. His hand brushes mine as he passes me a spiral notebook and a messy sheaf of papers in a blue folder.

For the first time in days, I'm not sad. I'm not crazed. I feel almost okay.

Then Spike grins like a fool, lopsided and cheesy, and invites me to one of his infamous barbecues at Corona Del Mar on Saturday.

“Saturday? Maybe,” I say, hesitantly. I'm not sure I'm ready for a swim team barbecue even though I've been going to Spike's beach barbecues since we were kids, since way before the swim team. “I might have … you know … family stuff.”

“Aren't we like your second family? Come on—you
have
to go.” His grin gets even wider, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “James said he'll get his brother to bring us some beer. It'll be awesome.”

And then, like it's a simultaneous track on a CD, a discordant harmony behind the lead singer—

it'll be awesome all right when those
swim hotties get all —

—drunk girls in bikinis

a real party for once, come on, come ON
don't let me down—

And that's what I hear. It's like overhearing something that's under the surface, whispering into my mind, low and urgent.
Under
-hearing. Unmistakable.

I stand in the open doorway in shock, my body frozen with one hand gripping the blue notebook, because this time I know it really happened. I know. And, for a moment, I'm completely caught up in his glee, his excitement, his urgent need for—I don't know what. Then it's gone. I sag against the doorframe.

Meanwhile, my mind is hyperactive, going over and over what I just heard until it all clicks into place. This is what happened before. It happened with my mom at dinner. It happened at the swim meet during my race; when I got home that day, Mom told me that Shiri—

No, I can't think about that.

I want to dismiss it as my imagination, but I can't. It sounds unbelievable to even consider, but it isn't just “in my head.”

I straighten up; strain my ears trying to listen. But I don't hear anything else.

I'm
not crazy
.

I must have been giving Spike a weird look, because he starts coming at me with his lips parted and tongue wiggling exaggeratedly, like he's going to French kiss me.

I raise my eyebrows, take a big step back, and tell him I'll see him tomorrow. Then I tell myself that if what I heard was really what he was thinking, it's no big shock. It's just Spike, through and through. I tell myself that despite that whole business about not letting him down—whatever that means—despite his excitement, he's not really going to mind if I don't show up to his stupid barbecue.

And I spend the evening trying not to think about it. Not just because it's freaky weird. Also because … I know he can't help being Spike and thinking that stuff, but I don't want to admit to myself that I thought I knew him better than that. That he's disappointed me. That
he's
let
me
down.

The next morning I open my eyes to the insipid, crooning strains of some second-rate boy band. I pull my pillow over my head to muffle the sound. I don't want to get out of bed. I'd rather stay tucked in here. I try to ignore my alarm clock, but I can't.

I drag myself into a sitting position and reach out to shut off the clock radio, then withdraw my hand. I imagine hearing the echoes of the music die away, leaving the room still and silent but my mind burning with the sound of voices in my head. My stomach does a slow somersault, and I swallow hard.

I'm really losing it. Is this what schizophrenia is like? I shiver a little, feeling cold even under the blankets. I reach my hand out again, slowly stretching out to touch my clock radio. Trembling a little, I crank up the volume.

When I get downstairs to the kitchen table, my mind is so paralyzed I can't even seem to make conversation.

My dad squints up at me, setting his spoon down in a bowl of granola. “You look tired. Are you feeling okay? Do you need to stay home?”

I jump at the sound of his voice. “I'm fine, Dad. Just …
cramps. I have to go today. I have a test in Pre-Calculus.” I don't really want to go, but I need to. I'm sick of my parents fussing. Dad goes back to crunching away at his cereal, but I can feel his eyes on me when I turn my back.

I start making myself breakfast, pulling things mechanically out of the cabinets and fridge. But I can't eat. I just can't.

I put away the banana, Rice Krispies, and milk I got out for myself and go back upstairs to get ready. In the bathroom, I try to style my hair, but I give up after squishing in a handful of mousse. I look at myself in the mirror, at my puffy eyes and half-wavy hair with an inch of dark roots showing, and I want to crawl right back under the covers. I try to pretend I'm Cassie, try to pretend I'm above it all, that nothing can touch me. But it doesn't help.

I randomly pull a hoodie out of the closet: gray with pink edging. It's late fall already, so the weather's been unpredictable. Today it's almost chilly. Only Spike could think that this was good beach party weather.

Spike.
I clench my teeth. Every time I think about last night when I talked to Spike, I get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and I try to think about something else, anything else. I sing songs in my head. I do deep breathing exercises. I slip my earbuds in and turn the volume up to maximum.

This morning, in the car, I turn on some earsplitting aggro rock and the drive to school ends quickly. The math test gives me something to think about besides everything else. And nobody's giving me the Stare of Pity anymore. Still, it's hard to concentrate. During American Lit a sudden wave of exhaustion comes over me and I spend the period staring at the wall. At Mr. Patrick's yellowing poster advertising Banned Books Week from eons ago, at the tiny square window in the classroom door reinforced with crisscrossing wire. A prison window.

In history class, I stare down at my desk and doodle a few sad little spirals to nowhere in my therapist-endorsed journal. When I look at it, I'm reminded of the journal that Shiri left me, the one I can't bring myself to pick up again.

What if whatever happened to her is happening to me?

I put my pen down and resist the urge to slam the journal shut. I don't know what gave Bettie or my mom the idea that this would actually help, or that I'd have anything to write about. Seriously, what would I put in there? What I had for lunch? How many times Eyes-Front had his eyes on my front? There's nothing to tell.

Less than nothing, in fact. Because there are things that I
don't
want to say. Things I don't want to put down on paper because that would make them way too real.

I was looking forward to lunch, at least. To one part of my life getting back to normal. And it looks the same from the outside, the whole crew occupying one of the miscellaneous jock tables near the gym. Everyone's here, everyone's talking and laughing as we eat lunch. But James and Marc keep glancing warily at me like they think I might start acting crazy at any minute. Elisa's voice drops to a nervous whisper every time she talks to me. Spike just acts like the same old Spike, but I still feel like an outsider.

I wish Cassie would scootch up to me on the picnic-table bench and distract me with silly gossip, the way she always used to when I was sick or tired. I know this is different, but they didn't act this way when Elisa's Great-Grandma Nguyen died. These are the same people I've been friends with since freshman year—longer, even, for Spike—and it's like they're afraid I'm contagious.

“Lame, dude, I can't believe your parents are making you go to some
wedding
,” Spike's saying, like this is the most disgusting thing he's ever heard.

“I know; it's like punishment. It's like hell in a tuxedo. It's like … ” Eyes-Front trails off, staring at Cassie's chest as she takes off her jacket.

“Quit staring, Marc. You're such a perv,” Cassie says offhandedly, but with a tiny smile. She never minds extra attention, even from him. “I, for one, will
not
miss you at the barbecue.”

“You wound me, woman, you wound me,” Eyes-Front says, putting a hand to his heart in mock anguish while still somehow managing to eye up Cassie.

“Sunny, are you coming?” Spike looks over at me from across the table. I'd almost forgotten I was part of the conversation.

“I'm, uh … I don't know.” I can't picture being at a barbecue with them, with these people who suddenly feel like strangers.

“James's brother is going to be there, remember,” he says, trying to sound persuasive. My cheeks get hot. Last year I had a humongous crush on James's older brother Evan, a junior at UC Irvine. Spike's argument might have convinced me once upon a time, but today I raise my eyebrows at him and shrug.